REALTORS® Put Their Expertise to Work for Philadelphia

REALTORS® Put Their Expertise to Work for Philadelphia

REALTORS® in Philadelphia are leveraging their real estate expertise and offering up a number of ways the city can improve its financial picture – and their ideas gaining attention.

Earlier this month, the city adopted a plan put forward by the Greater Philadelphia Association of REALTORS® and other groups to create a land bank that can help the city dispose of its 50,000 vacant buildings in the best possible way.

Other ideas from the association are also getting a serious look, including a plan to divide up two dozen schools the city closed last year into tiers based on what real estate professionals determine is their highest and best use after sale. Another plan, which the city and association are meeting on, helps improve a 15-year old property tax abatement by phasing out the abatement for home owners to spare them from sudden tax hikes when the term of the abatement ends. They will offer owners in struggling parts of the city an abatement that lasts three times as long.

“We are the voice for real estate but we’re also the voice for Philadelphia,” says Allan Domb, president of the Greater Philadelphia Association of REALTORS®. “By helping our city, we help the people and the businesses here.”

Domb thinks the association’s half dozen proposals could serve as models for real estate professionals and REALTOR® associations in other cities where vacancies are a problem, tax collections lag, and disposition of valuable city assets like empty school buildings could be improved. More coverage of the Philadelphia initiative is at Speaking of Real Estate.